School Violence

The South Bend Police Department will receive a $167,844 federal grant to reduce school violence, U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly's office recently announced. The grant is through the U.S. Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services' Secure Our Schools Program. COPS SOS grants provide funding to state or local government working in partnership with public schools to improve school safety.

It was recently suggested by an elected official in Wisconsin that in dealing with violence in our schools we should consider allowing the teachers to carry guns. Putting more guns into our workplaces or our schools is not the answer. The best place to start the process of dealing with violent activity, whether in our schools, our homes or in our workplaces, is to learn to recognize the signs associated with violence and to act on them when they begin to surface. As we have seen, violence in our society can happen anywhere and at any time.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Police say six guns were removed from the home of a Bloomington youth who threatened a copycat school shooting, while students in two other Indiana cities have been arrested for making school violence threats Bloomington police say the Bloomington South High School student is undergoing an evaluation after telling another student Monday he had a gun in his locker. The Herald-Times reports police say a search found he had no weapons at school and that the seized guns didn't belong to him. Police in Jeffersonville and Terre Haute arrested boys suspected of making threats.

CROTHERSVILLE, Ind. (AP) -- State police have arrested a 15-year-old Crothersville youth accused of threatening the lives of more than a dozen high school students from Crothersville and Brownstown. The student wrote what investigators describe as a "to kill list" that was found Friday at Crothersville High School, where the student was taken into custody, Sgt. Jerry Goodin said. The list had about 16 names, he said. Police don't know yet why the student compiled the list or how serious the threat was. Authorities, however, decided not to take any chances.

God wanted to be challenged by Clarence Conigan. And God wouldn't let Conigan go back to sleep until the South Bend resident agreed. Conigan, who attends Bread of Heaven Apostolic Church, is asking community residents to attend a one-hour prayer service at the offices of WUBS-FM (89.7) radio station, 702 Lincoln Way W. The event will take place at 10 a.m. Saturday. "We really want to let the people know that we care," Conigan says. The title and theme of the community prayer event is "Outside the Walls.

SOUTH BEND - National school safety expert Ken Trump asked educators gathered at Century Center this morning how many have practiced a lockdown at their respective schools. All raised their hands. He then asked how many have rehearsed one unannounced during a lunch period. The number of hands dwindled to three or four. “Are we practicing for reality,” he asked, “or to check off a box to say we did it?” Trump was the keynote speaker at a planning workshop for schools and public safety agencies called “School Crisis Response.” The event was sponsored by the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of Indiana, along with South Bend schools and the Highland Police Department.

BUCHANAN -- Administrators should notify police immediately if any Buchanan school receives a threat, according to a list of recommendations released Monday in a post-crisis report to the school board. The eight-page summary, compiled by school officials, also outlined a chronology of the events and what went right and wrong during bomb scares over the course of two weeks at Buchanan High School in March. A teenage student has been arrested and is permanently barred from attending a Buchanan school.

Since 1995, Concord Junior High School in Elkhart has raised more than $200,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, granting approximately 30 wishes for children with life-threatening medical conditions. Our school is one of many in the country that raises money for Make-A-Wish, but by far, Concord has raised the most in a three-state region. The students, staff and the Concord community -- in the spirit of philanthropy -- went to great lengths to raise more than $21,000 this year alone, granting six local wishes.

SOUTH BEND -- To proactively combat violence in schools, the South Bend Police Department implemented a new program this week to show its presence in 26 city elementary schools. The program is simple: When officers have time on their beats, they will stop by the school in their patrol area and do a walk-through, Cpl. Terry Santa said today. "There is no set time -- whenever we have time we just stop in," he said. "If anyone's watching the school, they will see we are around, but there is no pattern to when we stop.

A graffiti-type message left in a women's restroom at an Elkhart license branch kept thousands of kids from school on the day of the Boston Marathon. The scrawled message, found back in January, was brief. It suggested that 20 students would be killed at five schools in St. Joseph and Elkhart counties on April 15. School systems in the two counties notified parents of the threat and included assurances that police were ready with increased security -- just in case. Results from the restroom graffiti: Nearly half of South Bend Community School Corp.

"I know this sounds racist, but ... " So goes the subject line on last week's e-mail from Bill, a reader. It seems Bill has an idea. Given that "all of the radical terrorists have been Muslims," he wants the government to mount a program to surveil every follower of Islam who immigrates to these shores. We are, claims reader Bill, "faced with a population who swears an oath to God to kill Americans -- not Canadians, not Mexicans, but Americans. " It is, he says, "time we protect ourselves.

A graffiti-type message left in a women's restroom at an Elkhart license branch kept thousands of kids from school on the day of the Boston Marathon. The scrawled message, found back in January, was brief. It suggested that 20 students would be killed at five schools in St. Joseph and Elkhart counties on April 15. School systems in the two counties notified parents of the threat and included assurances that police were ready with increased security -- just in case. Results from the restroom graffiti: Nearly half of South Bend Community School Corp.

SOUTH BEND - National school safety expert Ken Trump asked educators gathered at Century Center this morning how many have practiced a lockdown at their respective schools. All raised their hands. He then asked how many have rehearsed one unannounced during a lunch period. The number of hands dwindled to three or four. “Are we practicing for reality,” he asked, “or to check off a box to say we did it?” Trump was the keynote speaker at a planning workshop for schools and public safety agencies called “School Crisis Response.” The event was sponsored by the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of Indiana, along with South Bend schools and the Highland Police Department.

SOUTH BEND -- To proactively combat violence in schools, the South Bend Police Department implemented a new program this week to show its presence in 26 city elementary schools. The program is simple: When officers have time on their beats, they will stop by the school in their patrol area and do a walk-through, Cpl. Terry Santa said today. "There is no set time -- whenever we have time we just stop in," he said. "If anyone's watching the school, they will see we are around, but there is no pattern to when we stop.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Police say six guns were removed from the home of a Bloomington youth who threatened a copycat school shooting, while students in two other Indiana cities have been arrested for making school violence threats Bloomington police say the Bloomington South High School student is undergoing an evaluation after telling another student Monday he had a gun in his locker. The Herald-Times reports police say a search found he had no weapons at school and that the seized guns didn't belong to him. Police in Jeffersonville and Terre Haute arrested boys suspected of making threats.

The South Bend Police Department will receive a $167,844 federal grant to reduce school violence, U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly's office recently announced. The grant is through the U.S. Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services' Secure Our Schools Program. COPS SOS grants provide funding to state or local government working in partnership with public schools to improve school safety.

God wanted to be challenged by Clarence Conigan. And God wouldn't let Conigan go back to sleep until the South Bend resident agreed. Conigan, who attends Bread of Heaven Apostolic Church, is asking community residents to attend a one-hour prayer service at the offices of WUBS-FM (89.7) radio station, 702 Lincoln Way W. The event will take place at 10 a.m. Saturday. "We really want to let the people know that we care," Conigan says. The title and theme of the community prayer event is "Outside the Walls.

Since 1995, Concord Junior High School in Elkhart has raised more than $200,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, granting approximately 30 wishes for children with life-threatening medical conditions. Our school is one of many in the country that raises money for Make-A-Wish, but by far, Concord has raised the most in a three-state region. The students, staff and the Concord community -- in the spirit of philanthropy -- went to great lengths to raise more than $21,000 this year alone, granting six local wishes.

It was recently suggested by an elected official in Wisconsin that in dealing with violence in our schools we should consider allowing the teachers to carry guns. Putting more guns into our workplaces or our schools is not the answer. The best place to start the process of dealing with violent activity, whether in our schools, our homes or in our workplaces, is to learn to recognize the signs associated with violence and to act on them when they begin to surface. As we have seen, violence in our society can happen anywhere and at any time.

CROTHERSVILLE, Ind. (AP) -- State police have arrested a 15-year-old Crothersville youth accused of threatening the lives of more than a dozen high school students from Crothersville and Brownstown. The student wrote what investigators describe as a "to kill list" that was found Friday at Crothersville High School, where the student was taken into custody, Sgt. Jerry Goodin said. The list had about 16 names, he said. Police don't know yet why the student compiled the list or how serious the threat was. Authorities, however, decided not to take any chances.